


The Five Times Q Saw James for the First Time and the One Time James Understood

by LivetoDream333 (orphan_account)



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: +1, 5 Times, Facial Agnosia, M/M, Not a medical professional, Really I'm not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-18
Updated: 2014-09-18
Packaged: 2018-02-17 20:44:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2322581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/LivetoDream333
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Facial Agnosia: the inability to recognize the faces of other people or one's own features in a mirror, due to damage to the underside of both occipital lobes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Five Times Q Saw James for the First Time and the One Time James Understood

**Author's Note:**

> Read about this, had to do it.  
> I'm not an expert, don't quote me.  
> But this was fun. :D

The Five Times Q Saw James for the First Time and the One Time James Understood

1 

“ _Q, he’ll be wearing a suit and sitting in front of the Fighting Temeraire_. Short blonde hair and well-built.”

“Thank you, Tanner.” Q said genuinely.

 _“No problem, Q.”_ It still felt strange to Q to hear that name applied to him. Q hung up and looked through the museum, stopping only when he saw a man in a suit. He slowly approached and sat down.

“It always makes me feel a little melancholy.” Q sighed, looking at the image. “A grand old warship being ignominiously hauled away for scrap. The inevitability of time… What do you see?”

“A bloody big ship. Excuse me.” Q listened to the voice, making a mental note as to the tone, the way he spoke, his pronunciation, everything.

“007?” Q asked. James sighed and sat back down. “I’m your new Quartermaster.”

“You must be joking.”

“Why, because I’m not wearing a lab coat?”

“Because you still have spots.” Q smiled.

“Age is no guarantee of efficiency.”

“And youth is no guarantee of innovation.”

“Well, I'll hazard I can do more damage on my laptop sitting in my pajamas before my first cup of Earl Grey than you can do in a year in the field.”

“Oh? So why do you need me?”

“Every now and then a trigger has to be pulled.” Q sighed.

“Or not pulled, hard to know which in your pajamas. Q.” Q smiled and looked at the man for the first time. He was handsome, in a rugged sort of way, and age was shown clearly on his face. His life hadn’t been easy on him. And his eyes. They were beautiful, in a charmingly, deadly, hypnotic sort of fashion. They were the prettiest shade of blue Q had ever seen.

“007.” Q smiled and shook his hand.

 2

“Q?” The voice called through the air.

 _007._ Q thought before turning to face the man. He was extremely attractive, dressed in a striped blue suit that brought out his blue eyes. His eyes were shockingly blue. Q almost jumped at the sight of them. They were as sharp as the edge of a knife, beautifully deadly, on guard. “Yes, 007?”

“We need to know where you’re at with his computer.”

“Oh, right. Now, looking at Silva's computer, it seems to me he's done a number of slightly unusual things. He's established failsafe protocols to wipe the memory if there's any attempt to access certain files.” _Sounds a bit familiar right now…_ Q thought to himself. “Only six people in the world could program safeguards like that.” He said as he worked, keeping the handsome man’s face within sight at all times, even if only out of his peripheral vision.

“Of course there are.” James scoffed. “Can you get past them?”

“I invented them.” Q smiled and he saw James smiled just a little bit too. Q could understand why everyone found the man so irresistible. “Right, then. Let's see what you've got for us, Mr. Silva.”

3 

Q walked into his home and froze. There was a man, bloodied and covered in dirt and ash sitting on his couch. His clothes were torn and a gun was in his hand. Q stared at the man with wide eyes when a pair of broken, beautiful blue eyes met his. He didn’t say anything, he didn’t move, he just looked at Q and Q stared back, not knowing what to do.

“She’s dead.”

 _Ah…007._ “I’m sorry.” Q whispered, closing his door and walking into his flat. “Why did you break in?”

“I had nowhere else to go.”

“Well, you’re welcome here. Get a shower, can’t have bloodstains on the sofa.”

“Right…” James nodded, unmoving. Q slowly walked forward and cupped James’ face in his hands, looking into those beautiful blue eyes, as bright as the waters of the Caribbean in the sunlight. Q fell in love with those eyes instantly. He pulled James gently into a hug and didn’t let go. James slowly hugged him back.

“Not your fault.”

“Have you read my mind?”

“No…but I have read your file and this wasn’t your fault, neither were the others. Come on, you need to get cleaned up, I won’t have you bloodying my house.”

 4

“Q…?” Q turned and smiled at Eve.

“Hello, Moneypenny.” Q grinned.

“Hello to you too, Q. How are things going?”

“Alright, I mean, things could be worse. It’s really weird, you know.”

“I’d imagine so.”

“Especially when I’m smart enough to realize something’s wrong and that…I still can’t fix it. I try really hard though, doesn’t seem to help.”

“Don’t worry, who knows, maybe it’ll get better.”

“I hope so.” Q smiled. “What do you need—?”

“Q?” James called. Q turned and his eyes widened. He was met with a handsome man smiling charmingly at him, his sky-colored eyes twinkling with mischief.

“No.”

“But I haven’t asked yet.”

“You’re plotting something. The answer is no. Now leave, I have actual, proper work to do.”

“Fine…” James sighed and walked off, knowing better than to fight with Q.

“You like him. You find him attractive.” Eve commented. Q turned back to her with a frown.

“He is a bit of a looker… Well…I think he is.”

“Hey, don’t hurt yourself. You’ve got that ‘I’m going to think about it until my brain explodes and I get it right’ look on your face.”

“He’s got really pretty eyes.” Q shrugged.

“Every time you see him, it’s sort of brilliant, the look on your face.”

“He broke into my flat and I nearly killed him. He wouldn’t talk and I didn’t know him well enough to…you know.”

“He doesn’t know?”

“Only you, Tanner, R, and Mallory know. People would use it against me if they knew. I can’t have that.”

“True…true.”

 5

James, for his part, was confused. Every time he saw the Quartermaster, the young man’s eyes lit up and looked him over, as if seeing him for the first time. If the young man had a crush he could have simply said—though James was sure Q wasn’t the sort to be up front about much of anything in that respect. James found Q attractive and didn’t ever mention the way Q looked at him.

He’d known the man for nearly a year when enough became enough. James snuck into Q’s office and sat behind his desk, in his chair and waited. Q walked into the office ten minutes later and looked at him, his eyes widening slightly as he looked him up and down, seeming both confused and impressed at the same time. James couldn’t help but notice Q’s eyes lingered on his. “What are you doing in here?” Q asked, somewhere between caution and curiosity.

“Hello to you too.” James smiled. Some of the tension in Q’s shoulders left and a slight, warm smile filed his features.

“Get out of my chair, 007. I don’t have time for the usual banter today. Though the attempt is amusing.”

“Do you have time for dinner tonight?” James asked with a sure, confident smiled.

“Erm…What?”

“A date, Q, with me? Eight o’clock? I’ll pick you up, if you’re free.”

“Oh, um, yeah, sure.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Yes, yes. See you then?”

“I hope so.”

“Get out of my chair, I really do have work to do.”

“Of course.”

 

+1.

James was at his wits end. He was in love with the damn Quartermaster, but nearly ten-percent of the time Q always seemed surprised when he looked at him, as if he couldn’t recognize James. The surprised looks were growing fewer and further apart, but it still bothered James. Sometimes Q looked so confused when he looked at James that it tore at him a little bit. But then Q’d smile at him, a radiant smile…and it was always a little bit of an ego boost when he caught Q looking at his face with an appreciative smile—not that James’ ego needed to be stroked.

James needed to know, so he began to search, and what he found startled him.

Q walked into his home office and smiled, looking into James’ eyes after scanning his body, his shoulders, his posture, and his hair. “Hi, James.”

“Facial Agnosia.”

“Oh…” Q whispered before sighing and sitting across from James. “Where did you find out? Did Eve tell you?”

“No…you did.”

“I didn’t.”

“Q, I’ve known you for a long time and sometimes you look at me like you don’t know me. You have to look at my hair and my build, you have to hear my voice to recognize me sometimes. I got curious, tried to figure out why you look at me the way you do.”

“Yeah…Facial Agnosia. I can’t recall faces. Every time I see a face, it’s like the first time I’ve ever seen it. That’s why I have to look at other things first. If you don’t talk I have to look at your build, your shoulders, your posture, anything that will tell me who you are. I can’t recognize faces. It’s not… I can _see_ you, it isn’t that bad, it’s just…I can’t remember you, I can’t recognize you. I’m sorry.” There were tears in Q’s eyes.

“Q…sh…” James got up and wrapped his arms around Q, pulling him onto his feet and into a warm hug. “Sh…it’s alright.”

“No, it’s not. I wish I could remember. But when I open my eyes I’ll be seeing you for the first time…again.” Q said, leaning back and doing just that, leaving his eyes on James, holding his face in his hands.

“When did this happen?”

“The attack on MI6, I was in the explosion… I hit my head…I haven’t been able to remember anyone since. It’s only because of Tanner I even made it as long as I did without losing my head. I nearly quit before I ever became Quartermaster. I woke up and everyone was a stranger…and then I’d hear their voices and remember. It was terrifying.”

“Are you alright now?”

“There’s really no cure…but I can recognize people now… I can figure out who they are by other things, how they walk, for example… I just can’t recognize their faces. I can’t remember them.” Q sighed. “All that and I just wish I could remember yours.”

“Why? Why mine?”

“You’re beautiful.” Q said as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“What do you like about me?”

“Fishing for compliments?” Q chuckled.

“Tell me what you see, what you think when you first look.” James half-asked, gingerly. Q lifted his chin slightly and closed his eyes for ten solid seconds before opening his eyes and looking at James.

“I like your eyes best, I could stare at them for the rest of my life… They’re so blue, so bright, and so _you_. You’ve got a sort of rugged handsomeness to you, age in all the right ways. You’re beautiful. I wish I could remember your eyes… Sometimes, when you’re not home I wonder what your face looks like. I end up having to get into your file so I can see you.”

“We could take a picture, so you have one here, with you.” James smiled, pressing a gentle kiss to Q’s lips. “Sound good?”

“Wonderful.” Q agreed.

“Consider it done.” James smiled.

“You want to know the strangest thing?” Q asked, a small smile on his face.

“What?”

“You should have seen me the first week.”

“What happened the first week?” James inquired.

“Mirrors. I don’t know what I look like. I couldn’t associate my face with me. It was a mess, funny in hindsight, but hell at first.”

“You know what you look like now, don’t you?”

“The hair gives it away, no one has my fucked up curls, process of elimination.” Q shrugged. “If I hadn’t known for my whole life that my eyes were green I wouldn’t be able to tell you that.”

“They’re the most beautiful green.”

“Really?”

“Yes.” James smiled. “You’re absolutely stunning.”

“I’ll have to take your word on that one.”

**Author's Note:**

> Much Love.


End file.
